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Relational Model

Model

The relational model is an approach to managing data using a structure and language consistent with first order predicate logic: all data lives in relations, tables of rows and columns, and every question about it is a logical expression over them. It was first described in 1969 by the English computer scientist Edgar F. Codd, whose 1970 paper A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks became the foundation of the relational database industry and of the SQL language. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Facts
Origin Year
1969 1
First described in 1969; the landmark public paper is Codd's 1970 A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks.
Core Principle
Keep all data in tables of rows and columns and ask every question in logic, so that what is stored is independent of how it is stored. 1
FAQs

Is SQL the same thing as the relational model?

SQL approximates the relational model and departs from it in many details.

No. Most relational databases use the SQL data definition and query language, but SQL is regarded as an engineering approximation to the relational model rather than a faithful version of it. A table in a SQL database corresponds to a predicate variable and the contents of a table to a relation. SQL databases deviate from the relational model in many details, and Edgar F. Codd fiercely argued against deviations that compromise the original principles.
Connections

In Field

Databases, Fields

Influenced

Source Wikipedia: SQL

Invented By

Source Wikipedia: Relational Model
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Relational Model
Wikimedia Foundation
  • Opening and History sections
    The relational model (RM) is an approach to managing data using a structure and language consistent with first-order predicate logic, first described in 1969 by English computer scientist Edgar F. Codd
  • Opening section
    first described in 1969 by English computer scientist Edgar F. Codd
  • Invented By: Edgar F. Codd, Lead section
    The relational model (RM) is an approach to managing data using a structure and language consistent with first-order predicate logic, first described in 1969 by English computer scientist Edgar F.
  • In Group: System Architecture and Data Models, Lead
    The relational model (RM) is an approach to managing data using a structure and language consistent with first-order predicate logic, first described in 1969 by English computer scientist Edgar F. Codd, where all data are represented in terms of tuples, grouped into relations.
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Wikipedia: SQL
WikipediaInfluenced: SQL, History section
Quote, Influenced: SQL, History section
SQL was initially developed at IBM by Donald D. Chamberlin and Raymond F. Boyce after learning about the relational model from Edgar F. Codd in the early 1970s.
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